Accused priest killer skipped parole meeting days earlier

Jun. 17, 2014
|

Gary Michael Moran, 54, was arrested June 16, 2014, on charges of first-degree murder in connection with the death of the Rev. Kenneth Walker of Mother of Mercy Mission Catholic church in Phoenix. / Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

by D.S. Woodfill, The Arizona Republic

by D.S. Woodfill, The Arizona Republic

PHOENIX - Three days before police say Gary Michael Moran murdered a priest and brutally beat another, he skipped a meeting with his parole officer and was already being sought by officials, according to law-enforcement sources and court documents released Monday.

Moran was released from prison only seven weeks ago, according to police, who described him as a career criminal.

He is accused of battering Father Joseph Terra with a 2-foot iron bar and fatally shooting Father Kenneth Walker with the other priest's gun.

Police arrested Moran at a mental-health facility in downtown Phoenix on Sunday and booked him into jail on suspicion of first-degree murder, armed robbery with a deadly weapon and burglary. They said he had been homeless since being released from state prison on April 25, after spending more than eight years there for a 2006 aggravated-assault conviction. Court records show he broke into a home and stabbed a man in his bed.

"Since that time, he's been living primarily in the streets, sometimes in the homeless shelter," Phoenix Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia said Monday. "But the fact is, he immediately went back to business - his business ... of criminal activity."

Moran, 54, was arrested and booked into jail shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday on suspicion of murdering Walker, 28, and beating Terra, 56, in an attack at their church rectory near downtown Phoenix last week, according to court records.

Moran was in a wheelchair during his first appearance before a judge on Monday morning, but police couldn't explain why. A Maricopa County Sheriff's Office spokesman said Moran showed up for booking in a wheelchair and said he needed it. The judge set a $1 million cash-only bond.

According to court records, Moran assaulted Terra to the point of unconsciousness before fatally shooting Walker and fleeing in Walker's vehicle, which was found abandoned blocks from the crime scene.

Police say DNA retrieved from the vehicle, which also contained an "angle iron" - an L-shaped construction bar - believed to have been used to assault Terra, matched Moran's DNA profile logged in a state-controlled database.

A combination of police statements and court documents released Monday described what happened at the Mother of Mercy Mission on Wednesday night.

Phoenix Police Commander Benny Piña, who leads the department's Violent Crimes Bureau, said Moran was trying to break through a window when Terra opened an adjacent door to investigate the noise.

Terra was "immediately attacked," Piña said.

According to a probable-cause statement compiled by a police investigator, Moran struck Terra multiple times with an "angle iron" in the kitchen of the rectory.

Terra said he walked or crawled to his bedroom to retrieve a handgun but "was unable to shoot the suspect because of the injury he sustained to his right index finger," the statement said.

Rob DeFrancesco, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, said he doesn't know why Terra had a gun on the premises but noted that there's no policy on the ownership of guns by priests.

Court records suggest Moran and Terra struggled for control of the weapon before Moran wrestled away the gun, ordered the priest to get on his hands and knees and demanded money.

Moran, according to the statement, corroborated Terra's account of the struggle.

Moran said "the other priest (Walker) then came after him, and he then shot that priest," the investigator wrote. "Gary said he does not remember anything else and did not want to speak with me anymore."

Police were first alerted to Moran on Saturday afternoon when a witness went to department headquarters and said Moran was bragging about attacking and robbing a priest, according to the police report. This was after homicide detectives, as well as agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives combed the neighborhood near the church, said Sgt. Steve Martos, a Phoenix police spokesman.

Police and agents knocked on doors in an attempt to find witnesses and searched the grounds with K-9s for physical evidence left behind by the assailant.

On Sunday, the Arizona Department of Public Safety's Scientific Analysis Bureau found that DNA from cellular material found at the scene matched Moran's, authorities said. Police arrested Moran soon after at a mental-health facility near Second and Roosevelt streets in downtown Phoenix.

Piña said he's confident police have an airtight case. "We wouldn't have made the arrest if we didn't think this was the person responsible for the attack - simple as that."

Prison officials had been searching for Moran after he skipped a meeting on June 9 with a parole officer, according to Doug Nick, an Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman. Nick said authorities would have attempted to track Moran down through known associates, family members, shelters and hospitals.

"(A) pretty wide net is cast," he said, speaking generally about searches for ex-convicts like Moran, who was on "medium supervision."

Medium supervision is one of four categories in which prison officials place parolees before releasing them from confinement. As such, Moran would have been required to meet face-to-face with his parole officer once a month and check in once a month by phone.

Moran has been previously convicted of aggravated assault, burglary, vehicle theft and drug violations, according to court records and Garcia.

"He is a career criminal - a violent felony offender," Garcia said.

Piña said Moran's criminal record goes back to age 18 and includes offenses in Arizona and California.

The aggravated-assault conviction stems from an incident on Feb. 8, 2005, when Moran entered a Phoenix home, removed a steak knife from a drawer and stabbed a male occupant "in the abdomen without provocation" as he slept, according to a May 2006 pre-sentence report on Moran compiled by a probation officer.